Sidewalk overlords clear a path

Monday

Mar 25, 2013 at 6:00 AMMar 25, 2013 at 6:02 AM

Clive McFarlane

Some Worcester residents have learned in recent years that winter often brings two kinds of snow jobs, one from having to clear their sidewalks and the other from trying to keep a cash-strapped city off their backs.

So on Jan. 16, when Dr. Robert Barresi, a retiree living at 31 Forest St., received a ticket for not shoveling snow from his sidewalk, he accepted it but wondered why he hadn’t gotten a warning as he had in previous years.

He said he had paid someone to clear his sidewalk, but apparently the young man he hired failed to notice that his home, being on a corner lot, had two sections of sidewalk. He cleared only one section. Dr. Barresi didn’t notice either, until he got a second ticket on Jan. 17.

The shocker was to come a week later, when he received in the mail a $477.52 bill from the city, claiming it had contracted a company from Shrewsbury to clear and treat his sidewalk with salt and sand. The company, Worcester County Sealcoating & Salt Inc., according to the invoice sent to Dr. Barresi, did the job on Jan 16.

“It goes without saying that if this service was actually performed, I would not have gotten the second ticket on the 17th,” Dr. Barresi said.

“Also, I am retired, so I am home most of the time and can easily see the sidewalks and would know if the service was performed. My concern is for other residents,” he said, noting that in discussions with the city manager’s office he learned that a situation similar to his had occurred at least once before.

He said if contractors’ bills are inaccurate, “in some cases you will have an elderly person, or a distracted homeowner, paying those bills. What protection does a homeowner have from a city contractor deciding with or without police involvement to perform services that are not requested and, as in my case, not needed?”

Dr. Barresi tried to explain his case to the city, and after about three weeks of phone calls and sending documents supporting his claims to the city manager’s and the mayor’s offices, the city sent him an amended invoice. Instead of $477.52, the city said he now owed $165.10.

To be sure, the city’s snow removal ordinance, which requires homeowners to clear their sidewalks within 10 hours after a snowstorm ends, is meant to promote safety and should be respected, but you can’t help but wonder in cases like this if the ordinance is more about digging into homeowners’ pockets.

Attempts to get the city manager’s office to explain what happened with Dr. Barresi’s bill were unfruitful last week, and a man who twice answered the city’s contact phone number for the plowing company told me to quit calling.

But according to Mayor Joe Petty, as a result of Dr. Barresi’s complaint the city now requires plowing contractors to provide before and after pictures of the job sites.

Mr. Petty said he also believes the size of Dr. Barresi’s initial invoice might have been a clerical error, or misunderstanding about the amount of work done by the company.

That might be the case, but how do you explain Dr. Barresi getting ticketed for not shoveling his sidewalk on Jan. 17, when the company in question cleared, salted and sanded his sidewalks on Jan. 16?

While he is happy that before and after photos will now be required for snow clearing jobs, Mr. Barresi said the city still has unfinished business with his case. He is demanding the city rescind his bill in its entirety and is asking for a letter of apology from the city and the contractor. He is also asking that the city provide him with three free instances of snow removal, although he doubts the latter will be accommodated.